A Yom Kippur Message

As we approach Yom Kippur, we at SRE Network have been thinking about our work around gender justice as well as how we create and sustain safe, respectful and equitable Jewish workplaces and communal spaces for all. Our work presents unique opportunities for t’shuva and accountability.

This year, we presented our first ever three-part September series on the topic of t'shuva and repair, attended by over 55 organizational professionals and community members. The first session led by Jericho Vincent of Shuva, taught us how to give better apologies. The second session with Dr. Claire Sufrin of Shalom Hartman Institute of North America asked us to consider the limits of t'shuva for individual sexual offenders. The final session, led by Dr. Alissa Ackerman and Kevin Lynch of Ampersands Restorative Justice, taught us about repairing harm to individuals and communities through restorative justice.

To further our ongoing work around these issues, we compiled resources from our t'shuva series. We are also pleased to share two innovative prayers that were written collaboratively and were shared in this Forward article and first released in 2018. Based on the traditional Al Chet and Ashamnu prayers chanted during this period, The Atonement Prayers We Should All Say In the #MeToo Era is a powerful piece that continues to resonate, as it captures our communal failures around abuses of power in both our actions and inactions, with the intention of inspiring us all to do better in the year ahead.

As you review these, we encourage you to consider:

  • What is the architecture of an effective apology?
  • What does it look like for an individual to take true accountability?
  • What are the justice needs of those who have been harmed, those who have caused harm, and their communities?
May we merit to be sealed in the Book of Life this year and may it be a year of communal and individual accountability and change.
Rachel Faulkner                                                  Dr. Guila Benchimol
Director of Community Investments                    Sr. Advisor of Research & Learning

An Al Chet for the #MeToo Era

By Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, Dr. Shira Berkovits, S. Bear Bergman, and Dr. Guila Benchimol

For the sin we committed through inappropriate use of power.
For the sin we committed by inappropriate sexual advances.
For the sin we committed by putting people in power without oversight.
For the sin we committed by not taking seriously the complaints of a colleague.
For the sin we committed by not believing victims when they spoke up.
For the sin we committed by not being aware of our own power or privilege when making an advance.
For the sin we committed by pushing forward when we should have waited and listened.
For the sin we committed by believing that sexual victimization does not happen in the Jewish world.

For all of these sins, God, help us rectify the evil we have brought about, help us to restore justice through the hard work of repentance. Only then, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

For the sin we committed in choosing to think a person who is appropriate with us is appropriate with everyone.
For the sin we committed by choosing our own comfort over the safety of others.
For the sin we committed by focusing on our intent rather than our impact.
For the sin we committed by prioritizing reputations and money over safety.
For the sin we committed by ignoring sexual victimization as a problem until #MeToo.
For the sin we committed by performative wokeness.
For the sin we committed by failing to acknowledge our ignorance about sexual victimization.
For the sin we committed by waiting to stand against a perpetrator until we saw others doing so.
For the sin we committed by making light of victims’ suffering.
For the sin we committed by contributing to rape culture.

For all of these sins, God, help us rectify the evil we have brought about, help us to restore justice through the hard work of repentance. Only then, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

For the sin we committed by causing survivors to doubt their truth.
For the sin we committed by misusing Jewish texts to promote silence.
For the sin we committed by not supporting survivors.
For the sin we committed by gaslighting victims and victim advocates.
For the sin we committed by cutting corners in best practice protocols.
For the sin we committed by talking more than listening.
For the sin we committed by prioritizing nuance over moral clarity.
For the sin we committed by urging those who have been victimized to forgive, especially before their perpetrator did the hard work of repentance.
For the sin we committed by prioritizing some victims’ voices over others.

For the sin we committed by requiring vulnerable people to depend on me, rather than investing in the development of healthy, decentralized systems that empower the entire community, and hold us accountable.

For all of these sins, God, help us rectify the evil we have brought about, help us to restore justice through the hard work of repentance. Only then, God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.

An Ashamnu for #MeToo

By Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, S. Bear Bergman, Leah Greenblum, Emily Becker, Abby Citrin

We Abused our power, we didn’t Believe survivors, we were Complicit, we Demeaned. We Echoed the majority, we Focused on our own self-interest over safety, we Gave abusers opportunities to further harm, we Humiliated survivors, we Ignored our impact, we Justified inappropriate behavior. We Kept abusers in power, we Laughed at jokes that supported rape culture, we Marginalized narratives that weren’t easy to digest, we Normalized problematic behavior, we Ostracized victims, we Participated in the erasure of survivors’ voices. We Questioned survivors’ motivations, we Reinforced harmful myths, we Silenced voices trying to come forward, We Trivialized. We didn’t Use safe protocols, we Violated boundaries, we Waited too long to take action, we eXonerated perpetrators who didn’t repent, we Yielded to our basest impulses, we Zealously defended perpetrators of harm.
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